


a dark roast coffee

by sybris



Series: Don't Poke the Bear [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Not Shippy, adrien/marinette is only mentioned, cut me some slack lmfao, everyone in their class knows, post-reveal, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 00:25:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7244809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybris/pseuds/sybris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chloé gets what she deserved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a dark roast coffee

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first miraculous ladybug fic, and it's purely self indulgent, so. sorry?
> 
> based on a headcanon that if you provoke marinette enough she will bite back. and it isnt pretty.
> 
> anyways, enjoy

The sudden _bang_ of someone slamming their hands down on a desk rung out throughout the entire classroom.

Marinette stared at the perfectly manicured nails before her. She heard Alya take in a small, sharp gasp of surprise, heard the rustling of Nino turning around in his seat, and physically felt every single pair of eyes zero in on her.

“So,” said a voice too obnoxious to belong to anyone she actually liked.

“I heard you and Adrien have been getting awfully chummy lately.”

Marinette sighed. She wished she didn’t have to deal with this. She was way too tired to deal with this.

She glanced up at the person before her, staring straight into the glaring eyes of Chloé, whose gaze hardened even more as soon as they made eye contact.

Marinette knew Chloé hated her. She never really understood where it originated from, but she wasn’t blind. She knew Chloé had started hating her more recently, especially since her and Adrien had actually started talking and developing a friendship.

Because of that hatred, no one had the guts to tell Chloé Marinette and Adrien were actually dating now.

Marinette regarded Chloé with a heavy amount of distaste. Slowly, she straightened her back. She knew something bad was coming. Better to face it with a confident posture.

“I suppose so.”

The pen in Marinette’s hand started to bounce from side to side nervously. It danced and twisted in her fingers, tapping occasionally against the desk, the infrequent sound seeming to make the overall silence of the classroom even more suffocating.

Chloé’s eyes narrowed. Her perfect eyebrows furrowed.

“You know he doesn’t actually like you, right?”

The pen stopped. It stuttered to a halt, rolling off of her fingers and clattering to the floor with earthshattering sound that was beyond an onomatopoeia.

Chloé must have taken that as a sign of weakness, because a smirk curled up one corner of her lip, and her eyes took on a nasty grin as she folded her arms across her chest. She cocked out a hip.

“Oh, did no one tell you he was only being friends with you out of pity?”

The smirk widened.

“Poor Marinette. You actually believed he liked you for a second, didn’t you? Aw, I almost feel sorry for you. All this time, and no one told you the truth?”

Chloé had the audacity to get right down into Marinette’s face. “But don’t worry, you have other friends, right?”

She looked pointedly at Alya.

“If you call her a friend.”

Chloé straightened. Placed the back of her hand to her lips in a way that didn’t hide her smirk at all. Placed her free hand on her hip and stared at Marinette down her nose.

Marinette could feel her blood pumping. She hated how she got when she was tired; so easy to provoke, so easy to get a reaction out of. When she was exhausted, her entire personality changed. She became cold, hard, short-tempered. She got angry at everything and everyone. She yelled and she screamed and she tried her hardest to remain at least kind, but the longer she went without sleep, the harder it got.

She was like a bear. One poke and she’d bite your hand off.

She just wished this wasn’t happening when she was running off of six hours of sleep between two days.

Chloé was relentless. She continued on with her attacks, each one seeming to focus on how Adrien wasn’t actually friends with Marinette, how Adrien was better than her, how he was always going to pick Chloé over her, why would she even think she had a chance?

What hurt most was how each one hit so close to home.

The truth was, she’d always felt like she wasn’t good enough for him. Here she was, shy, clumsy little Marinette who, until very recently, couldn’t even get a full sentence out around her crush-turned-boyfriend. There he was, Adrien Agreste, model, son of famous fashion designer Gabriel Agreste, who could become friends with anyone he wanted.

Why would Adrien choose her?

She knew she was hurting Adrien by having such thoughts. If he knew what she was thinking, he’d probably silence her with a pointed look before calmly telling her, “You’re perfect for me. You’re Ladybug, I’m Chat Noir. You’re creation, I’m destruction. You’re Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and I’m Adrien Agreste. We were meant to be.”

“I really don’t know why he chose you over me. I really don’t.”

Marinette waited for the finishing blow. Chloé’s smirk said it all.

“Do you?”

Marinette’s gaze snapped from where it had settled on a spot on her desk. It hardened, froze, whipped up to meet Chloé’s own stuck up one, and she knew she would hear about what was about to happen for days, weeks on end.

“I think I have an idea.” Marinette spat at Chloé. Chloé herself looked surprised that she’d responded, but it was only visible in a slight falter of the smirk; she obviously worked to stamp down her surprise.

Chloé snickered. “Oh, she bites back.”

Still looking at Marinette from down her nose, Chloé’s eyes held a challenge within them. Her smirking lips drew back into a slight snarl, and she stated sharply, “Please, do share.”

It was Marinette’s turn to slam her hands down on the desk. Her side of the bench squealed, her calves slamming into the bench, but she didn’t care. There was exhausted fury in her veins and it was begging to come out.

“Maybe it’s because you’re a stuck up brat who doesn’t know when to shut up.”

The words echoed in the silence. They suffocated her, taunted her, but she didn’t back down.

Not this time.

“Or maybe it’s because you’re so obsessed with him that you don’t allow him to have any friends besides yourself. Maybe it’s because you’re jealous of how easy it is for him to make friends, how natural and genuinely charming his personality is, how different you are from him.”

Chloé looked like she’d slapped her. Marinette continued.

“Or maybe it’s because you’re so unbearable that even he’s realised it. Maybe it’s because you’re so goddamn oblivious to the fact that the world doesn’t revolve around you and how you tried to drag him into your superiority complex. Maybe it’s because you think so highly of your bratty self that he’s finally realised you don’t actually care about anyone around you.

Or maybe it’s because he’s realised how shitty you treat Sabrina. Or maybe it’s because you’re so fixated on yourself that you didn’t even realise I’m already his girlfriend. Maybe it’s because you hold yourself with such high regard that you’ve tricked yourself into thinking he actually likes you, which, newsflash, he doesn’t. Maybe it’s because you refuse to believe that he isn’t actually your boyfriend, that you aren’t his only friend, that he’s allowed to have friends beyond your suffocating ass. And maybe, just maybe, it’s all of that and more.”

Marinette was heaving by the time she got the last sentence out. Her shoulders were heaving up and down, her chest was heaving in and out, her entire body was heaving with the anger she still felt towards Chloé.

And Chloé. Chloé was frozen, a look of surprised locked onto her face.

Their entire class waited with bated breath to see what either of them would do. Frankly, Marinette feared they were silent because they were trying to decipher what she’d just said. She was so tired it felt like it had all come out as a jumble.

Which, knowing her, it probably had.

But then Chloé leaned forward and jabbed a perfectly manicured finger at Marinette’s chest, and she knew something had gotten through.

“Do you know who you’re talking to?!” Chloé shrieked, her voice shrill and grating on her ringing ears. “I am the Mayor’s daughter! And I know Daddy won’t appreciate how you just said all that to me!”

Marinette almost scoffed. She honestly didn’t care. Not in that moment.

But Chloé was prepared, apparently, because her next words cut Marinette to the core.

“Daddy has the power to kick you out of Paris, you know! He can lock you up for speaking to me that way.” A smirk. A _taunting_ smirk. “He has the power to lock your family up, too, so watch what you say.”

Alya’s second sharp intake of breath said it all.

Marinette felt her eyes widen. How _dare_ she bring Marinette’s family into this? How _dare she?!_

Before she really knew what she was doing, Marinette reeled her hand back, flattened it, and _slapped_ Chloé Bourgeois across her perfectly made up face.

Chloé recoiled completely. Her eyes widened in shock as the pain seemed to finally register in her mind, but Marinette grabbed her by her shirt collar before she could say anything, and pulled her right up to her own face.

“Do _not_ threaten my family.” She spat, fury boiling her blood. “You threaten my family again and I swear you will not live to see daylight again.”

Marinette felt a smirk similar to Chloé’s own curl at the corners of her lips.

“And that’s a Ladybug promise.”

Only their class knew the weight of those words.

It had been months since both Marinette and Adrien had been discovered to be Chat Noir and Ladybug, and months since the entire class had found out. They were merciful enough to keep the secret between their class, and while both Marinette and Adrien were incredibly grateful for everything the class had done for them, the class had always had an incredibly mutual agreement to never actually mention their secret in conversation; even amongst themselves.

But, Marinette supposed today changed that.

A hand settled on her forearm. Turning her head, she was greeted with Alya’s stern face.

Who shook her head at Marinette with as much sternness as her face showed.

“It’s not worth it, girl.” Alya said. There was comfort in her voice, and slowly, Marinette’s hands unclenched from the grip they had on Chloé’s shirt.

Sighing, Marinette avoided looking at anyone. Instead, she just looked at a spot on the floor, her nostrils flaring and her entire body still heaving. She needed to get away. To cool off.

Her eyes fell on her bag. The bag that Tikki was poking out of.

Tikki caught her eye. Nodded.

“I’m going to go cool off.” Marinette muttered. She spared a glance at Alya in time to see her friend nod.

Marinette worked her legs to work. One foot in front of the other, all the way to the window, where she calmly stepped out of it, onto a little ledge beneath the window, and immediately called on her transformation.

Ladybug turned slightly back to the class.

“Tell Adrien where I am. Alya, can you cover for me?”

A concerned “alright” was the only response she heard before she unleashed her yo-yo onto a nearby ledge and flew away.

The class remained silent for a few moments after Marinette left.

They weren’t sure what to say. Weren’t sure if they should move.

But they all silently agreed that they had each obtained an important piece of knowledge that day.

_When it comes to Marinette, do **not** poke the bear._

**Author's Note:**

> dont really know what else to say other than here's my [tumblr](pedoseidon.tumblr.com) and feel free to comment any praise or criticism. i live for that shit


End file.
